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Opinion: Editorials

Editorial: City should probe manipulation charge

Posted:
12/12/2015 08:00:00 PM MST

Dee Alexander, left, her son Jonathan Alexander, right, and his daughter Lillian Alexander, center, enjoy a picnic together in the stands at the Glen Huntington Band Shell in June. A member of the board of Historic Boulder suggests in an email to City Council that city staff tried to manipulate the Landmarks Board into abandoning the seating by clever editing. (Ryan Gooding / For the Camera)

Did Boulder city staff attempt to manipulate the Landmarks Board by editing important information out of a staff memo?

That's the allegation in a Dec. 2 email to City Council from Karl F. Anuta, a member of the board of Historic Boulder. Anuta suggests the city's historic preservation staff was either conveniently and uncharacteristically sloppy or guilty of "intentional manipulation" when it omitted language from a 1995 staff memo that ran counter to the current campaign to move the Glen Huntington Band Shell, a city historic landmark, and do away with its outdoor amphitheater seating.

A staff memo to the Landmarks Board dated Oct. 7 made the case that removing the seating is "generally consistent" with the city landmark ordinance. In his email to council, Anuta observed that the Oct. 7 memo relied heavily on a 1995 staff memo supporting designation of the band shell as a landmark. But one section of the 1995 memo was edited out to make it seem more in line with today's plans by omitting references to seating as part of the landmark. Here's the paragraph from the 1995 memo:

The Band Shell is environmentally significant for its planned and natural site characteristics; as a component of the central urban park; and as an established, familiar, and prominent visual landmark for Boulder citizens due to its arched design, its location near major thoroughfares, and its amphitheater seating. The Band Shell and its open air seating have long served as the focus of Central Park and as a civic center for social and cultural events in Boulder.

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Here's how that paragraph was edited to appear in the 2015 memo:

The Bandshell is also environmentally significant for its planned and natural site characteristics; as a component of the central urban park; and as an established, familiar, and prominent visual landmark with its arched design and its location near major thoroughfares.

No mention of the amphitheater seating. Here's Anuta's interpretation in his email to council:

"In 1995, staff remarked on the significance of the seating. But in 2015, staff deliberately engaged in creative editing, apparently in order to convince the board that seating was no longer significant. If the board had been advised in 2015 that the seating was considered significant in 1995 at the time of designation would they have still agreed to allow its removal? Did the staff deliberately misinform the board? Did the staff manipulate the facts presented to the board? The conclusion seems obvious."

Our concern here is different from that of Anuta and Historic Boulder. Their campaign is to preserve the band shell in its current location with its current seating. We understand their argument, but we also understand the city's case that moving the band shell a short distance would help to produce the broader Canyon Boulevard its civic area plan envisions.

Our concern is twofold: First, the potential hypocrisy of a City Council decision awarding itself flexibility in dealing with historic structures that it does not permit private citizens; and second, the possibility that staff deliberately misled the Landmarks Board in order to achieve its desired outcome, which gets at the question of who is actually in charge at city hall.

Certainly, the amphitheater seating is as much a "contributing element" to the band shell as an obsolete coal shed behind a fence is to the "alleyscape" in the Mapleton Historic District. If the improperly removed coal shed had to be rebuilt, as council ordered, why is it OK for the city to remove the seating? Similarly, when a 12th Street bungalow's landmark designation was being contested by the owner, moving it was a non-starter. So why is it OK to move the band shell?

City leaders have the responsibility to decide whether such modifications to historic structures are permissible. But once that decision is made, it should apply consistently to everyone. What's objectionable is city officials exempting themselves from the rules they impose on their constituents. Equally objectionable is the possibility that city staff purposefully misled a city board to achieve its desired outcome.

We urge the city manager to investigate whether city staff intentionally omitted 1995 references to band shell seating in order to mislead the Landmarks Board. We further urge her to report her findings to City Council in a public meeting.

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